The Carroll Hospital Center Foundation said it has received $5 million towards a an effort to raise $22 million to benefit medical services. The Taneytown-based Kahlert Foundation donated the money to be used to support improvement efforts at Carroll Hospital Center and Carroll Hospice. It is the first multi-million dollar gift the hospital has received in its 50-year history. The fundraising effort, “Campaign to Cure & Comfort, Always,” will support five key areas: the cancer center, a community education and wellness center, emerging technology, endowment funds and cardiovascular and stroke prevention and treatment.

Carroll Hospital Center is joining Anne Arundel Medical Center and other health systems, businesses and employers who won't hire people who smoke cigarettes or use other nicotine products. Carroll announced the policy Thursday, and it expands on a policy that bans use of tobacco products on campus. The expanded ban is expected to begin in January. Nicotine causes a wide range of health problems and is the leading cause of preventable death, hospital officials said, and is not part of the healthy lifestyle they are trying to promote.

WESTMINSTER - The Carroll Hospital Center Auxiliary and Carroll Hospice will host the annual "A Season to Remember" week-long celebration of the holidays from Monday, Nov. 28 to Monday, Dec. 5 at the hospital, 200 Memorial Ave., Westminster. The event serves to raise money for the hospice, and asks residents to honor and memorialize loved ones through donations and the purchase of holiday ornaments. The event kicks of on Monday, Nov. 28, at 7 p.m. with the lighting of the annual The lighting of the Tree of Lights.

Henry F. Cerny, a dentist who had a practice in Westminster for nearly 30 years, died June 28 at the Golden Living Center in Westminster of complications from a fall. He was 94. A native of Baltimore, Dr. Cerny was a 1937 graduate of Kenwood High School and a 1943 graduate of the University of Maryland School of Dentistry. He also spent a year at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy before joining the Army. He served as a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service. While with the service, Dr. Cerny spent time as a dentist at Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas.

Employees of the Westminster branch of Morgan Stanley donated 15 handmade fleece blankets to Carroll Hospital Center last month as a gesture designed to brighten the spirits of children in the hospital's care over the holidays. The blankets were made by staff members of two departments at Morgan Stanley - the Velnoskey Group and the DeRenzis Ford Group. Douglas Velnoskey, a senior vice president at Morgan Stanley in Westminster, and Coleen Kramer Beal, registered associate of the Velnoskey Group division at the company, made the presentation.

Carroll Hospital Center soon will begin a $28 million expansion and renovation project after the March 15 approval of a certificate of need by the Maryland Health Care Commission. This expansion includes a two-level addition to the southeastern part of the hospital campus to increase the number of licensed operating rooms from five to eight. The hospital also will add 24 private medical/surgical beds in south wing of the fifth floor of the bed tower, which was built in 2003. The project will total 53,680 square feet, including 22,325 square feet of existing space that will be renovated.

Jennifer Daniels expected to be at Carroll Hospital Center for only a few hours after being admitted in July for emergency outpatient gallbladder surgery. But her hospital stay stretched to four days and, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, turned life-threatening after a nurse allegedly administered intravenous insulin instead of the antibiotics that Daniels' doctor had prescribed in the hours before her operation. The lawsuit filed by the 31-year-old Owings Mills woman seeks not only financial compensation for her experience but also an end to the $12,000 in medical bills that Daniels' lawyer says the hospital continues to try to collect for the resulting tests, cardiac evaluation and critical-care stay.

A 19-year-old was killed after his 1997 Saturn collided with a garbage truck early Tuesday morning, closing a section of Maryland Route 27 in Westminster for four hours, state police said. Nicholas Louis Vidi of the 4700 block of Woodbine Road in Sykesville was driving north on Route 27, south of Kate Wagner Road, in Carroll County when his car veered into the southbound lane, hitting the truck driven by Jeannette Zelaya of the 200 block of Hobbitts Lane in Westminster, state police said.

Carroll Hospital Center is joining Anne Arundel Medical Center and other health systems, businesses and employers who won't hire people who smoke cigarettes or use other nicotine products. Carroll announced the policy Thursday, and it expands on a policy that bans use of tobacco products on campus. The expanded ban is expected to begin in January. Nicotine causes a wide range of health problems and is the leading cause of preventable death, hospital officials said, and is not part of the healthy lifestyle they are trying to promote.

Gordon K. Harden, a retired insurance executive and World War II veteran, died Wednesday of a heart attack at Carroll Hospital Center. He was 96. The son of Guy Tyson Harden Sr., an egg and butter salesman, and Cecile Kingsley Harden, a homemaker, Gordon Kingsley Harden was born at home in Owings Mills. He was a 1936 graduate of Franklin High School and graduated from Stafford Business College. In 1938, Mr. Harden went to work for Pan American Airways as station manager at Harbor Field, its Baltimore terminal, on Colgate Creek, which is the site of today's Dundalk Marine Terminal.

The University of Maryland Medical System will provide management services to Union Hospital in Elkton, the latest in a series of partnerships state hospitals are forming as they prepare for changes in the health reimbursement system. The affiliation will allow Union to tap into the resources of a major academic center and improve patient access to doctors and clinical services, the orhanizations said Wednesday in announcing the partnership. Union Hospital will keep full control over its finances and physical assets during the 24-month agreement.

Carroll Hospital Center has begun what it calls an "aggressive" search for hospital partners, saying it's open to all options, including the possibility of merging with another institution. The 193-bed hospital has operated independently for its entire 53-year existence and is profitable, but CEO John Sernulka said changes in health care will put financial pressure on small hospitals like his in the near future. "Reimbursement will continue to tighten," Sernulka said. "There will be less and less dollars pumped into the health care system.

The economy, jobs creation, and unemployment continue to be in the national and state news these days. Locally, the business and economic climate has changed in the last few years. To be certain, change has been a constant dynamic in the local economy since the beginnings of our county in the 1700s. The one thing that has remained the same in spite of all the changes, is that agriculture continues to be a major industry in Carroll. But one agricultural product many younger readers may not be familiar with that has not withstood the test of time is an ancient medicine known for its distinctive, unpleasant smell - wormseed.

Josephine Grant never knows what she'll find at her doorstep when she comes home. The biggest surprise came when she returned from school one day last spring to a stack of 10 enormous cardboard boxes, each containing dozens of baby bottles. No one in her family could use them. But nearby, there was a great need for the bottles, and Grant knew what to do. This "hobby" of Grant's started when she was 13. "My little cousin was born with Goldenhar syndrome, was always in and out of the hospital, and never had anything to do while in there," she said.

Joyce M. Vogelsang, a homemaker and avid sports fan, died Friday of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at Carroll Hospice Center's Dove House in Westminster. She was 85. Born and raised in Baltimore, the former Joyce Millicent Pruett was a graduate of St. Mary's Academy in Southern Maryland. When Carroll County General Hospital — now Carroll Hospital Center — opened its doors in 1961, Mrs. Vogelsang took a job there as a unit clerk and worked there until 1969. The former Winfield resident later moved to Westminster.

Ethel M. Yingling, a longtime volunteer whose efforts led to the building of the Carroll Hospital Center and Carroll Lutheran Village, died in her sleep Monday at the Mays Chapel Ridge assisted-living facility in Timonium. She was 96. Ethel M. Abbott was born and raised on her family's farm in Finksburg. She attended Carroll County public schools. She was married in 1933 to David G. Yingling Sr., who was a co-owner of Yingling Bros., a Union Bridge meat-packing firm and purveyor. He died in 1987.

Steven M. Smith, a respiratory therapist and outdoorsman, died Saturday from cancer at the Golden Living Center in Westminster. He was 56. The son of a United Methodist minister and a social worker, Steven Montgomery Smith was born in Laurel. He was raised in University Park and Edgewater before settling with his family in Mount Airy. While attending South Carroll High School, where he played football and soccer, he worked on a dairy farm. After graduating in 1975 from South Carroll High School, he worked at Carroll County General Hospital, now the Carroll Hospital Center, while attending the University of Maryland, College Park.

A 2-year-old boy is in critical condition after the lawn mower he was riding on with his grandfather in Westminster overturned into a creek Sunday morning, according to the Carroll County Sheriff's Office. Deputies said the man and his grandson were cutting grass on the riding lawn mower in the 600 block of Jasontown Road shortly before noon when the mower crossed an embankment next to a stream and overturned, briefly trapping the child in the water until the grandfather could free him. Lt. Robert Cromwell of the sheriff's office said the child's injuries were from inhaling water and from the tractor overturning onto him, but the boy was not injured by the mower's blades.